The thought bubbles of the Superman story “Unreal” read like poetry once you take the pictures away:
I can defy the laws of gravity.
I can ignore the principles of physics.
I can breathe in the vacuum of space.
I can alter the building blocks of chemistry.
I can fly in the face of probability.
I can bring smiles of relief to a grateful populace.
But unfortunately…
…the one thing I can not do…
…is break free from the fictional pages where I live and breathe…
…become real during times of crisis…
…and right the wrongs of an unjust word.
A world, fortunately, protected by heroes of its own.
Does this story – by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau – sound a little too sincere something that’s only two pages long? It’s because it belongs to DC Comics’ second volume of artists’ reactions to 9-11, released in 2002. It’s a fascinating cultural document of dozens of writers and artists struggling to make sense of the attacks. Some go for grand symbolism, and others for raw, personal moments. Some are genuinely moving; some are well-meaning but wince-inducing.
Because this is DC Comics, though, superheroes necessarily wind their way through many of these stories. For example, Superman helps children to symbolically rebuild twin towers with toy blocks. A kid draws his own superhero stories while waiting for news about his father. A godlike hand plays with superhero action figures around a glowing tower. Weirdest of all: Krypto, Superman’s superpowered dog, flies in a giant water-dish for the rescue dogs who’ve been looking for survivors.
The presence of these characters creates a conflict between heroic reality and heroic fantasy, and it’s never far from the surface of the page. In Brian K. Vaughn and Pete Woods’ story, “For Art’s Sake”, it’s the actual plot. It features a comic artist who doesn’t see the point in drawing superheroes any more. “…we’re sitting here telling meaningless stories about imaginary heroes,” he says, “while, out there, hundreds of real heroes are dead.”
Steven T. Seagal has dealt with some of these same questions of pesky reality in his autobiographical graphic novel It’s A Bird. In it, he explains how difficult he finds it to write Superman. “I’ve been thinking it over and the pieces don’t add up… the costume, the secret identity, the origin…” he says. “Superman doesn’t hold water in the real world.”
(I write about this odd Superman story, as well as Doctor Doom’s less-than-villainous reaction to the 9-11 attacks, over here.)
What I love about Seagle’s story in this volume, however, is that it draws attention to Superman’s fictional status without compromising his character. Even though it shows Superman as just pencil and ink, flat on the page, he’s still allowed his thought bubbles. We see him wishing he could travel to our world and offer us help.
In fact, it’s like a mirror-image of the volume’s cover. 
There, Superman is the one who appears three-dimensional. From the safe distance of his own fictional universe, he’s looking up with admiration at a two-dimensional representation of rescue workers – peering into a flat representation of our world, just like we peer down at his heroic deeds on the comic book page.
Superman simply says: “Wow.”
#1 by Manolis on June 11th, 2009
I can’t believe Superman, of all superheroes, broke the fourth wall.
I know Deadpool and She Hulk have done so, but, really, who cares about them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool_(comics)#Breaking_the_fourth_wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She-Hulk#Breaking_the_fourth_wall
#2 by Manolis on June 11th, 2009
And here’s a list of the mostly marginal characters who have broken the fourth wall, which might need to be updated so that Superman is added.
http://www.comicvine.com/fourth-wall/12-44795/
That Ualu the Watcher has broken the fourth wall, though, makes complete sense.
#3 by Matt on June 11th, 2009
So like, when’s Frank Millar gonna release Batman Vs. Al Qaeda or “Holy Terror, Batman!” and break the Fourth Wall by becoming a complete parody of himself! … or hasn’t he already done this?
#4 by Martyn on June 12th, 2009
Does it count as breaking the Fourth Wall if you’re only doing it to lament the fact that you can’t actually break through the Fourth Wall? Maybe we need another, less violent term for it…
Ironically, maybe, Frank Miller’s contribution to the first volume of DC Comics’ 9-11 specials is the last thing he’s done that really worked for me. It’s stark images of a star, a cross, and the wreckage of the towers, with captions reading: “I’m sick of flags. I’m sick of God. I’ve seen the power of faith.” It’s powerful stuff.
Since then, uh, well…
#5 by Manolis on June 12th, 2009
A character breaks the fourth wall by knowing that they’re a character. It’s impossible for any character, though, to suddenly become real.
Superman isn’t actually lamenting the fact that he can’t break the fourth wall, which he has broken due to his being aware that he’s a character in a comic book, he’s lamenting the fact that he can’t be real, which no character can be.
After reading Sin City, it was pretty obvious Frank Miller was going through a heavy midlife crisis and man issues starting from around about the time he wrote Batman Returns.
I’d say in terms of nuttiness, it would go Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, Dave Sim and Alan Moore in that order.
The mystery: how has Neil Gaiman remained such an all round nice guy?
#6 by Manolis on June 12th, 2009
That’s Steve Ditko as nuttiest, and Alan Moore as the least nutty of the nutties.
#7 by Matt on June 12th, 2009
Agreed, Sin City itself progresses from noir satire into possible misogyny. Originally I thought it was all the former, but in light of his work after it could easily be seen as the later. Truth be told I never read All Star Batman & Robin, but read a lot about it.
#8 by Martyn on June 13th, 2009
Superheroes breaking the Fourth Wall is one of my obsessions, actually. Not just talking about of the page, but the ways they push it further to approximate the impossible – the possibility of a fictional character breaking through into the ‘real world’ – with all kinds of weird comic book logic. Grant Morrison, especially, loves to explore this stuff: writing himself and our dreary reality into Animal Man, or ‘injecting’ superheroes into the real world in Justice League Classified, or, well, pretty much all of Flex Mentallo. Even back in 1968, DC’s ‘Earth Prime’ is supposedly ‘our’ universe, where superheroes are just fictional characters…
And I wholeheartedly agree on Frank Miller’s fall from grace, I must admit. Sin City turned from noir, to noir-parody, to a weird uncomfortable self-satire that’s been stewing in its own genre-juices for far too long. Watching his female characters turn from pencil-and-ink to actual flesh in The Spirit certainly snapped some issues into sharper focus, too. That said: All-Star Batman is bizarre enough to be interesting, even if not for the right reasons…
#9 by Manolis on June 15th, 2009
I haven’t read much of Grant Morrison, so I could be wrong with the examples you cited, but isn’t breaking the fourth wall about the character knowing that they are a character and not real?
Whether or not the character inhabits a real world modelled on our own is beside the point. It’s whether or not the character knows that they are a fictional character created by someone else that is important.
There’s a Borges story that has something similar going on. It’s called The Circular Ruins, and in it, the character learns that he has been dreamed up, learns that he is indeed the invention of another, despite the fact that he himself has dreamed up the existence of another.
Here’s a synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circular_Ruins
#10 by Martyn on June 15th, 2009
First things first: get yourself the trades of Morrison’s Animal Man run. You won’t regret it. It’s a perfect blend of superhero deconstruction and genuine emotion.
And you’re right: I’m happily using the term ‘fourth wall’ with my own widespread conceptual biases. Someone can certainly tell me I’m wrong, but it’s technically when a character speaks directly to the audience, right? (Like the invisible wall in traditional theatre that separates the two.)
In superhero comics, though, the supposedly separate worlds of fiction and reality, spectator and character, are often treated as almost-equal ‘parallel worlds’ by all kinds of meta-trickery, like the kinds I mention above. (This really needs to be a post of its own, doesn’t it?)
I’ve read plenty of Borges but that one doesn’t ring a bell; I’ll track it down. Thanks.
#11 by Paula on December 13th, 2011
I am interested in finding a poster with picture of Superman and Krypto “WOW” the 9-11 Trade center one. Is there any place I can purchase this?